


Who's That Girl?

by Erato_Muse



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:09:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24711376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erato_Muse/pseuds/Erato_Muse
Summary: Sirius is trapped behind the Veil for what seems like years on his end, minutes on the other side. He is not alone, however, but trapped with Leta LeStrange, who entered the purgatorial realm when Grindelwald seemingly incinerated her. Together, Leta and Sirius come to terms with their past, and make it back from beyond the Veil, just in time to join the war against Voldemort as it begins in earnest. Meanwhile, Remus and Nymphadora Tonks overcome a misunderstanding, and Harry and Ginny Weasley become close as they investigate a Black family secret.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Sirius Black/Leta Lestrange
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

Harry didn’t think, he reacted. The singed smell and booming sound of spell fire rang through the Department of Mysteries, as Harry reached into the Veil, after Sirius. He heard Remus yell,  
“Harry, no!” in anguish, but victory leapt in Harry’s heart like a drowning fish. He felt a hand! Sirius’s hand!

“I think its Harry’s hand! Harry, my godson!” Sirius said giddily.  
“I know who you mean. You talk of him incessantly. ‘Harry, who is so wise beyond his years, Harry who is so clever, Harry who is such a smashing Quidditch player’. You have made my purgatory a perfect bore, Sirius Black. But, I always found the men of your family boring,” Leta Lestrange drawled.  
The mists of time billowed around them. Light, sound, and time were different behind the Veil. Sirius felt he had known Leta for years, and that he had been gone from Harry’s life for years…again. When Bella’s curse knocked him on his ass, he had expected to land on the cold stone floor, get up again and return fire. Instead, he went into the Veil, felt its tendrils of prima materia grasp at him like a sea creature made of shadow, and pull him into a strange vacuum.  
There was one other living soul there, Leta Lestrange.  
“Ugh…is this where people go when Grindelwald kills them? Does he have his own special Hell, of his own devising?” she had drawled haughtily, her Nefertiti-esque beauty infused with pride and steel, indomitable eyes and a superior smirk on her mouth. But, her hair was askew, her silk gown was wrinkled, and Sirius heard a frantic edge beneath her composure. She desperately wanted news, and who knew how long she had been trapped there?  
“Grindelwald is dead,” he said.  
“Thank the gods! Was it Dumbledore? Who killed him?” she asked.  
“You know Dumbledore?” he asked.  
“Well, who doesn’t? I have to get back, you must help me!” she demanded.  
“Sweetheart, I can’t help myself, at the moment. I don’t know where the Hell I am,” Sirius said.

As they compared stories, Sirius realized the events Leta was referring to had occurred in the 1930s. He also realized that she was extremely brave….in that Slytherin way, that revealed the best of a wizard that they had been saving for a critical moment. He didn’t have the patience for that. Sirius was all in or couldn’t be bothered. He didn’t have any secrets, from himself or others. When Leta talked about her best friend, Newt Scamander, her veneer of haughty stoicism dropped enough to show warmth in her brown eyes, and a fond smile around her full, rosy lips.  
“Newt wrote his book, you know,” Sirius said. “Hogwarts students study it.”  
Her smiled deepened, and she looked glad for him.  
“And Theseus?” she asked.  
“Sorry, never heard his name till now,” Sirius said honestly, and Leta looked downcast again. She hugged her knees in a posture of boredom she was accustomed to. Her plum colored gown billowed around her legs and hid her feet. Her light brown hair, which fell in long, full, waving ringlets like an Edwardian portrait tumbled around her beautiful face, a face like an Egyptian queen carved in an ancient statue. Sirius wanted to chase the sadness from her eyes. What could he say, or do, to alleviate her despair?  
“So, you’ve read it, Newt’s book?” she said. she sighed. “He always had an affinity for monsters, Newt-myself included.”  
“You are the least monstrous sight I’ve ever beheld, Miss LeStrange. I admit your surname gives me pause…” Sirius said.  
Leta smirked once more, and what light there was in the void danced gray in her eyes.  
“I’m not like you, Sirius Black,” she said. “If you told me a true account of yourself, you resist, you defy, you define yourself, you fight for the light, hope, a better future, and the life of your son.”  
“Godson,” he said.  
“You’re the only father Harry’s got,” Leta insisted.  
“You dueled Gellert bloody Grindelwald! You saved lives!” Sirius insisted.  
“That was atonement,” Leta said.  
“For?” Sirius said.  
“I killed my brother,” she said.  
Leta told Sirius the story of Corvus, of what she had done, of the ship that went down in icy waters with her baby brother on board.  
“Now, I suppose you will elect to spend Hell by yourself-at least you only stumbled in. I deserve to be here,” Leta said triumphantly, sure that Sirius would be repulsed.  
“I’ve failed everyone I ever loved. You don’t understand my story at all. I’m not a Knight of the bloody Round Table. I failed James, and Regulus,” Sirius said. “You killed one brother-I killed two. You were a little girl who needed love. I was an arrogant, reckless, thoughtless man.”  
“Oh, to the devil with your Byronic moodiness! This was meant to be my moment of self-castigation, thank you very much,” Leta said.  
Sirius burst out laughing.  
“You’re not a bad person, Leta. Who we are is constantly changing, too quickly to be called simply good, or simply bad,” Sirius said.  
He expected her a retort, but she sighed, and her thin shoulders dropped.  
“Sirius, I am so tired. I thought I deserved to be here. I hated myself, for most of my life. But, life and time are different here…I think there is space within me that there was not before, which is ready to accept mercy. Grace,” she said.  
“Harry is my grace. He doesn’t blame me, he loves me. I can see it in his eyes, and it humbles me, it keeps me alive. The guilt will always be there….but maybe we can mend it, and make something new,” Sirius said.  
A hand reached into the Veil. Sirius grasped it, and with his other hand reached out for Leta. She took his hand.

“Sirius!” Harry cried out. Sirius stumbled out of the Veil. Remus looked at his best friend in disbelief.  
“Sirius! Where the devil were you?” Remus said, then turned his attention to the woman emerging from the Veil grasping Sirius’s hand. She was around Nymphadora’s age, with romantically long and waving dark brown hair, caramel brown skin, a face like Nefertiti, wearing a plum violet silk gown.  
Spells whizzed around Sirius, Remus, Harry, and the woman. Sirius rushed to Harry, grasped his shoulders, and apparated away, presumably to 12, Grimmauld Place.  
“Oh, that’s gentlemanly,” the woman said, casting ‘Protego’ to block an incoming spell. She and Remus both ducked behind a stone pillar.  
“You must understand, Sirius has to deliver Harry to safety! He’s eager to join the Order, but he’s too young, and has too many weak spots,” Remus said, returning fire from their cover.  
“Yes, of course, all he talked in our purgatory was Harry,” Leta said, and fired a spell as well.  
“What is it like, behind the Veil?” Remus asked.  
“Bloody boring!” Leta said, and fired a spell around the pillar.  
“I’m Remus Lupin,” Remus said.  
“Oh, yes, Sirius called you his last living brother,” Leta said. “But, why does he call you Moony?”  
“Oh, you know, boys and their public school nicknames,” Remus said.  
“I’m Leta LeStrange, by the way,” Leta said.  
“No relation, I hope,” Remus said.  
“One cannot be blamed for one’s relatives,” Leta said.  
“Certainly not,” Remus said.  
“Glad we’re of accord-now, run!” Leta said.  
Remus and Leta abandoned their shelter, in just the nick of time. A jet of light decimated the pillar to ashes, and a Death Eater Remus knew to be Antonin Dolohov was revealed. He was a fierce duelist…and Remus was an out of work teacher. He knew the odds, but he had to try. He looked at Leta-he didn’t know her, but if Sirius trusted her enough to tell her about their friendship, he felt he could trust her to be his second. Their eyes met, and one of those instant, uncanny, kismet bonds of the battlefield were formed.  
Dolohov aimed a spell, and Remus fired back. Dolohov had no second, so when Leta fired a spell, he had to answer it in kind himself. Dueling two wizards was sure to mentally and energetically tire him. Together, Leta and Remus held Dolohov off, ping-ponging him between their magic.  
Soon, both Death Eaters’ and Order of the Phoenix alike’s attention was drawn from each other to the arrival of Voldemort and Dumbledore. Their duel reduced all the others that had come before to a cheap lights show, a pantomime of war and magic. Glass shattered, flames were thrown, water was bent to waves, and everyone present felt that their education at Hogwarts had been a neutered, stunted thing. Only Dumbledore was a true wizard among them, and they watched his power and precision as if watching the ocean churn a new island out of a volcano’s spray.  
When Fudge arrived, there was no doubt that Voldemort was back, and Harry had been telling the truth.

In the parlor of 12, Grimmauld Place, Harry was shaking, and sweating, in shock as he told the story of how he and his friends ended up at the Department of Mysteries.  
“Sirius, I saw it all, in my head…just like Mr. Weasley, and the snake…I saw him hurting you…I had to save you, I had to make it stop,” Harry murmured.  
“No, no, Harry, I’m here, I’m right here,” Sirius said, trying to sound soothing, not like his heart was going to jump out of his chest and guilt was knocking him out colder than Mike Tyson. Harry needed him calm, and steady. He looked into his godson’s eyes, which were just like his mother’s… and he’d always found it damn near impossible to lie to Lily Evans.  
“But, you weren’t! The Veil…” Harry stuttered, on the verge of tears.  
“Its some kind of parallel dimension, time moves funny, there. But, it doesn’t matter, now. You matter. You are all that matters to me,” Sirius said. “When you were born…and your parents asked me to be godfather… I felt like I was sorted, you know? I’d always been looking for something or running away for something, but now there was you. It changed me, Harry.”  
Harry nodded. “That’s how I felt…when I found out you didn’t betray my parents,” he said.  
Sirius nodded, pleased and relieved that Harry was calming down.  
“Harry, you did the best you could, tonight. You told someone what you thought was going on, and you did what you could to fix it. But, you also took far too much responsibility on yourself, tonight,” Sirius said.  
“I had to! You…you would have come for me, wouldn’t you have? I know you would have. You came back from the Veil for me…you always come back for me. I couldn’t lose you, Dad,” Harry said.  
The word shocked Sirius…but he knew that it was an inevitability that had come to fruition. It was why he had hung back at Christmas, and other times when he let distance between him and Harry stay rather than bridging it. James was Harry’s father, and Sirius felt guilty for being there when James could not be ,so he’d tried to pull back, a little. But, the same feelings had crept up on both of them, and Sirius felt like Harry was his son as much as Harry felt that he was his father. He didn’t want to fight it, after being trapped behind the Veil, unable to reach Harry.  
“Harry…” Sirius said. “I love you. Its over now. Maybe not all of it, but this part. And whatever’s coming next hasn’t happened yet. Go up to bed. You need rest.”  
Harry nodded. The poor kid was drained, but Sirius could tell that he was relieved that the worst hadn’t happened: they still had each other.  
As Harry climbed the stairs of 12 , Grimmauld Place’s parlor up to his bedroom, he turned around and asked,  
“Oh, and by the way, who’s that girl?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius and Leta confide in each other, and take a huge step; Remus and Nymphadora have a misunderstanding; Harry experiences an unexpected attraction to Ginny, as they plunge into a mystery

Everything was different now. Remus could feel it already, as the Order operatives poured into 12 Grimmauld Place. The battle beleaguered wizards showed no inclination of settling in to recover from their ordeal at the Ministry. Remus remembered that potent intoxicant, fear meeting adrenaline meeting victory, and the dizzying knowledge of one’s own mortality. The impromptu order meeting, sans Sirius, who was comforting Harry, was mostly wild speculations that couldn’t be answered mere hours after Voldemort’s appearance:  
Would Fudge resign?  
Would Arthur and Nymphadora still be in trouble for being involved in a shadow organization that had withheld information from the Ministry?  
Would Harry be questioned by the Ministry?  
Remus has a slight headache, and pulled a slightly soft and dented Cadbury bar from the pocket of his cardigan.  
Nymphadora cut him a bemused look.  
“Is this really a time for chocolate?” she asked.  
“If ever there was a time for chocolate, it is now,” he said.  
“Then you’ve gotta share!” she said.  
He smiled graciously, and broke her off a square of chocolate.  
“So, what did Sirius have to say for himself?” Tonks asked.  
“We didn’t get much time to talk, he whisked Harry off, he’s been with him ever since,” Remus said.  
He would catch up with Sirius soon. Sirius had a way of always knowing where Remus was, even if he seemed to be keeping his distance-like a big brother. Although they were the same age, there had always been something big brotherly or paternal in Sirius’s friendship, reckless though he was with his own wellbeing.  
Tonks nodded. “He saved my life,” she said, with gravity and awe.  
Here we go again…Remus thought. Sirius may be oblivious to the effect he had on women, but Remus had lived in its wake since they were about 14. The trouble was, Sirius always had some sort of conundrum on the front burner that kept his mind off pursuing a love life….like, a best friend who was secretly a werewolf, a brother who was joining the Death Eaters, etc. His air of distraction just enhanced his allure.  
“Well, Nymphadora…” Remus sighed. “I’m sure he wouldn’t be opposed to being thanked.”  
“Sure, of course I’m going to thank him,” she said.  
“And, while you’re at it, you can tell him the rest,” Remus said.  
Tonks frowned. “The rest of what?”  
“How you feel about him. You two have a great rapport, a lot in common. Sure, there’s the age difference, but, what’s 15 years? Age is just a number. He rushed in to save you from Bellatrix, obviously he cares about you, too. I think that if you two sat down, had a real talk, you know, who knows…?” Remus said.  
He wanted Sirius to be happy. With real proof that Voldemort had returned and Sirius was obviously not one of his followers, who knew what would happen? On his best days, his friend had the same boundless energy that had always made him so compelling, and clear, passionately held loyalties that had always made him so constant a friend. He was a good man. And Tonks, she had a similar charm, fun loving but courageously principled. And, they both liked punk rock. Remus was more of a New Wave guy. There was some overlap there, sure, but…he felt strangely sad at the idea of Tonks and Sirius’s happily ever after to the soundtrack of the Sex Pistols while he drank cocoa to Elvis Costello somewhere…  
“Let me get this straight. You think I want to boink my cousin?!” Nymphadora said furiously.  
Remus was surprised at her furious expression. Her hair had lost its whimsical pink luster, it was black and with her gray eyes and strong jaw, she had an uncanny resemblance to the woman who had tried to murder her that very night, her aunt Bellatrix.  
“Erm…I…what?” Remus said.  
“You think I’m in love with my cousin? You think I ought to go up and offer myself to my cousin?” Nymphadora demanded.  
“Not offer yourself up…I mean, have a talk, two adults, with mutual regard for each other…” Remus said.  
“Two adults…who are cousins?” Nymphadora said. “Did you forget, or something?”  
“No, of course not, I just assumed it wasn’t a major impediment with wizards, especially wizards from the Old Families. I mean, you’ve seen the family tree…” Remus said.  
“And, you’ll notice, Sirius was burned off, and I was never even put on the bloody thing. My mother didn’t raise me like that, for a reason. She hated all of that twisted Pureblood ideology. And so does Sirius, you know that!” Nymphadora said.  
“I know, I know, of course I know that. But, I rather thought…I mean, he rushed into your duel with Bellatrix…” Remus said.  
“I know I failed tonight, all right? Maybe it was a joke before, how I can barely walk a straight line without tripping, but now…after they saw how I almost got me and Sirius killed by Bellatrix… I knew people wouldn’t look at me the same…I just didn’t realize how low I’d fallen in your eyes,” Tonks said.  
“Nymphadora, please, allow me to explain,” Remus said.  
“I gotta get home. I’m facing a shitstorm at the Ministry…and who knows how long there’s going to be a bloody Ministry. Good night, Remus,” Tonks said, and Apparated away from 12 Grimmauld Place, probably to her flat. Remus’s first notion was to follow her there, but he knew that he was out of strikes for the night, best to leave it. 

The world had changed, and yet not changed at all, Leta reflected. There was a Dark Wizard afoot, dividing their world, and Professor Dumbledore was at the heart of the fight against him….but, the handsome gentleman in the tweed suits had become a venerable old Merlin in glittery caftans, a wizard from a Muggle child’s storybook. And his foe was not called Grindelwald, but Voldemort.  
‘Fly from death,’ she translated. Must have been a pithy little moniker the man gave himself. Only people trying to remake themselves gave themselves new names…as Leta had tried to do. Leta Scamander…that sounded like an honest woman, who was married to an honest man, didn’t it? The Scamanders were as different to her family, the LeStranges, as night was to day: they were good people. Leta had hoped that falling in love with Theseus would Transfigure her good by association.  
“Never heard the name,” Sirius had said.  
So, Theseus was not enshrined in the immortal annals of the brave and the bold, but was one of the ignominious good who hold up the sky while a few luminaries make history. He was forgotten. She cried as she bathed in the old claw-footed tub…then the water went cold, and she knew she had to get out of the bath and do something with herself. She dried herself off, and put her plum silk gown back on, though she was heartily sick of it. She wished she had some Shalimar by Guerlain to spritz on her neck…but, she considered herself lucky to find a hairbrush. She brushed her hair, and realized that the house was silent…the buzz of conversation as a new generation of Albus’s Argonauts hashed out their plans and enacted his in the never ending fight against dark magic had ceased. The house was silent.  
Leta opened the bathroom door at the same time Sirius emerged from a bedroom. Their eyes met, both trying to see if the other was any different outside of the realm behind the veil.  
“I hear you dueled Antonin Dolohov. Not bad,” Sirius said.  
“I hear you dueled some loathsome relative of mine. Good show-all LeStranges are horrid, you know,” she said.  
Sirius laughed. “Well, she’s only a LeStrange by marriage. Once, she was my cousin Bellatrix Black…and, my betrothed,” he said.  
“Ah, it was a lover’s quarrel,” Leta teased. “Hell hath no fury like a jilted bride. You didn’t leave her at the very altar, did you?”  
“No, but I did run away from home before the wedding could take place,” Sirius said.  
“You have real nerve, Sirius Black,” Leta said, with a smile.  
“And you’re quite a witch, Miss LeStrange,” Sirius said.  
“How’s Harry?” she asked.  
“He needed a bit of reassurance. Voldemort struck close to home, this time,” Sirius said. “I just feel like there’s something about all this Albus hasn’t told me…which leaves me emptyhanded when Harry asks me questions.” He added, “He called me ‘Dad’.”  
“See? What did I tell you? You’re the father he knows. I’m sure that your friend James was an admirable man-but, to Harry, you are his father,” Leta said.  
“Thank you, Leta. If we hadn’t spoken of it beforehand, I think I would have rather fumbled the Quaffle when the moment came,” Sirius said. “I love that kid…”  
“I know,” she said.  
“Protecting Harry isn’t going to be easy. The wizard that Dumbledore dueled tonight, Voldemort, has been trying to kill him since he was a baby,” Sirius said.  
“So I gathered,” Leta said. “But, he has the whole Order of the Phoenix to protect him, hasn’t he?”  
Sirius nodded, trying to believe this and derive comfort from it. Leta put her hand on Sirius’s shoulder. His shoulder-length brown hair grazed her shoulder, tickled her fingers. His gray eyes held Leta’s brown eyes, and they shared a wordless communion born of the eons they had spent in each other’s company, the conversations and the silences.  
“They say you may be pardoned,” she said.  
Sirius shrugged. “I’ve gotten this far, lying low. I don’t need the Ministry to tell me that I’m free,” he said.  
Leta smiled admiringly. “I wish we’d met when I was at Hogwarts,” she said.  
“I rather think we would have eloped,” Sirius said.  
“But, you weren’t even born when I was a girl. Tis a pity,” Leta said.  
“Well, we’re both here, now. Leta, you kept me sane, in there. Kept me human. It would have been Azkaban all over again, if not for you,” Sirius said.  
“Well, if I truly have your eternal gratitude, can you find me a change of clothes? I am minutes away from burning this thing,” Leta said, gesturing to her plum silk dress.  
Sirius laughed. “Do you really need anything to change into, at all? Its my house, you have my full permission to go starkers,” he said.  
Leta laughed. “Your godson is still too delicate an age to find naked women roving about,” she said. “But, what I wouldn’t give to swim naked beneath the moonlight in some humble little pond in the countryside! It’s always been a private dream of mine.”  
“Has it? Who would have guessed such a dream as that lurked in such a head as your’s?” Sirius said.  
“When you are truly a free man…perhaps you can accompany me as I fulfill it,” Leta said.  
Sirius smiled. “I think it can be arranged, before then. Just you wait. Which do you prefer, cats or dogs?” Sirius asked.  
“Dogs, indubitably. Cats don’t truly care for one, do they? Dogs are genuine, loyal,” Leta said.  
Sirius’s smiled deepened. “By God, you are perfect, Miss LeStrange,” he said, and dared to hug her. “That settles it, then. Your faithful dog, Snuffles, will be accompanying you and standing guard as you swim clothed only in moonlight.”  
“Snuffles?” Leta said, but Sirius had disappeared. She looked around, and then looked down, and saw a shaggy, wolfish black dog with Sirius’s gray eyes.  
She laughed, and clapped her hands in delight. He was so full of surprises!  
“Sirius! You never told me that you were an Animagus!” she said.  
The dog bounded down the corridor, and Leta chased behind it like a girl. She had seldom felt so carefree when she actually was a child, between the rigid Pureblood etiquette her father imposed on her, and the scrutiny of children at school who tortured her with rumors about her brother’s disappearance. Her only solace had been Newt and his menagerie, the way he lovingly cared for his pets and trusted her with them, too.  
Laughing, Leta followed the great black dog, Snuffles, which playfully bounded onto the bed of the master bedroom. Laughing, Leta jumped on the bed after it. She had never jumped on beds as a girl! She would have been scolded terribly by her nanny or governess-scolding a child was much too lowly a task for her father to undertake himself. As she lost her balance and landed on the bed, she saw that Sirius was a man once more, and he was smiling at her.  
“Why ever did you become an Animagus?” she asked.  
“It’s a long story, but it’s not entirely my story, so I can’t tell it all. Suffice it to say, my friends and I got up to a lot of experiments and adventures in school,” Sirius said.  
“When you were still a boy, you became an Animagus?” Leta said. “Sirius, you’re quite a wizard.”  
He put his arm around her, and Leta settled into his chest. He smelled vaguely doggish, but not in a bad way. He smelled earthy, like a walk in the woods. She felt wholly at home in his arms-they had comforted each other many times, behind the Veil.  
“You were lucky, to have such friends,” she said.  
“Its just me and Moony, now. I don’t know where we went wrong with Peter,” Sirius said.  
“Well, I didn’t know him, but, if I may surmise?” Leta said.  
“Go ahead,” Sirius said.  
“Leaving school is difficult. Breaks up the old alliances, destroys the old patterns. It can be hard to keep your friends because its hard to know who you are. I think James getting married and having a family upset something, it sent you all in different directions, and Peter couldn’t stand not being a boy anymore, being alone with himself. It sent him running for another group to join, and he was overwhelmed and felt defenseless to resist,” Leta said.  
“I suppose. I reckon I thought if he ever had any trouble, he’d run to me. There’s no one I wouldn’t have protected him from,” Sirius said.  
“Perhaps he didn’t think he was worth it. You have to love yourself to believe anyone else loves you,” Leta said.  
“Miss LeStrange, you did a lot of thinking about life before I came around, didn’t you?” Sirius said.  
“Yes, and now I have a callow boy to instruct with all of my philosophical gleanings. I feel like Socrates!” she said.  
“Well, don’t drink the wormwood,” Sirius said. “and I don’t think I qualify as a ‘callow boy’.”  
“To me, you are,” Leta said. “I’m not as young as I look, Sirius. You could be my son!”  
“Well, passing over that…” he said.  
She caressed his chin, delighting in the burn of his stubble. He was 36, but that wasn’t old at all…he was a strong young man, with haunted eyes, and just enough maturity to have a compassionate heart, to want a future with those he loved. When he smiled, he looked vital and full of life, and his good nature shone through. What idiot could ever think he was a dark wizard and mass murderer, a follower of that poseur she had seen dueling Albus? Sirius Black was no follower-he had too much heart for these times, and too much light for the dark name he had been born to. Sirius closed his eyes as if her touch was that of a goddess, transforming him, blessing him.  
She ran her fingertip up and down his neck, and with her other hand caressed his stubbly cheek.  
“How long has it been since you’ve been touched, Sirius?” Leta asked.  
“God, I can’t remember. That’s how Dementors work, Leta-they take the joy right out of you. I can remember my friends, and being at school, and Harry when he was a baby; because I fought for those memories. But, I couldn’t keep everything,” Sirius said.  
“Then its time for new joys, my boy,” Leta said, and began to unbutton his shirt. He leaned in slowly, and brought his lips to her’s.  
Sirius clicked off the bedside light. Leta understood. 

At breakfast the next morning, Harry observed that Sirius and Remus were in two very different moods. Remus was putting on a brave face of strained graciousness, but he was miserable beneath his forced pleasantness. Sirius, on the other hand, was whistling, and singing “Life on Mars” by David Bowie while flipping pancakes.  
“How are you in such a good mood after last night?” Hermione asked.  
“Danger invigorates some people,” Luna said.  
“Can’t believe You Know Who showed up, himself! Did he always look like an albino gecko?” Ron asked.  
“No, he used to be a handsome bastard,” Sirius said. “like a fallen angel. It drew a lot of people in.”  
It was true-the boy that had come out of the diary in Harry’s second year was handsome, calm, capable, and Harry had trusted him instantly. He could only imagine that Tom Riddle fully grown, returned from his long travels full of exotic tales of obscure magic he had mastered-like a more subtle Gilderoy Lockhart with a sinister agenda.  
“Yeah, well, he isn’t half the wizard Dumbledore is, really,” Ron said, and narrated the duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort, complete with sound effects.  
Remus and Sirius looked at each other: he sounded just like them, James, and Peter, fresh off an early victory in a skirmish that had looked close, but gone their way.  
“As glorious as Dumbledore’s victory last night was, he won’t always be around. Nor will I, or Sirius. Ronald, Harry, Hermione, Miss Lovegood, you must understand that last night you took a huge risk, and you were remarkably lucky. You’ll think me cold to say it, but luck runs out,” Remus said. “Our world is truly at war, now, and we can have no more capricious risk and luck: wars are won with planning and applied skill.”  
“So, what do you need us to do?” Harry asked.  
“We need you to take your O.WL.s! Wars are also won by adults,” Sirius said. “Do you understand?”  
“That’s not fair! Its me Voldemort wants to kill, I have to do something about it!” Harry said.  
“Harry, Harry! Do you truly think this is just about you? He wants the world, Harry. He wants his brand of wizard to rule us all: wizards, Muggles, and everyone in between. Anyone he can use will be used until they’re dust, anyone he has no use for will be exterminated. And if he succeeds, there won’t be a world for any of us,” Sirius said.  
Harry felt humbled by this. He said, “I understand.”  
“But…you do need to defend yourself,” Sirius said. “I think you should keep up the D.A, for anyone who’s interested, next year.”  
“You might even have more takers than before,” Remus said.  
Hermione, Ron, and Harry nodded.  
“Do you think it will be necessary? I mean, the Ministry will hardly have the same inclination or resources to interfere at Hogwarts in the same way,” Hermione said.  
“Yes, but you all still need defense skills, and the kids will need a teacher they can trust,” Sirius said. “That’s you, Harry.”  
“If anybody’s interested,” Harry said. “anyway, since Umbridge will probably be….taking a rest cure, we’re going to get a new Defense teacher.”  
“Er, well, yes, you are. And, you do know him quite well, already,” Remus said.  
“You’re coming back?! Professor, that’s awesome! Then we don’t need the D.A.! You can teach us everything!” Harry said.  
“Um, no, not me…but, when Professor Snape came round to see if Sirius was at home, he rather let slip that he had finally been appointed for the position he’s so long desired…my former position…” Remus said.  
The joy drained from Harry’s face. “Snape?! What’s he know about Defense Against the Dark Arts?”  
“Extensive knowledge gained from saving his own skin, I’d expect,” Sirius said, getting a laugh from Ron.  
“Severus always had an affinity for hexes, at any rate,” Remus said. “Look, he has years of ill will between him and the students. I expect it will be Mutiny on the Bounty from day one-but you, Harry, people trust.”  
“Are you actually recommending that we defy authority and sew dissent?” Hermione said, shocked.  
“We need you kids in play. Look, I shouldn’t tell you this, but our intelligence seems to suggest that Voldemort is looking for a way to attack Hogwarts,” Sirius said. “Do you understand what that means, Harry?”  
He did. He had a year to get his fellow students ready for the possibility of attack.  
Ginny came downstairs yawning, wearing an old-fashioned flannel nightgown with lace trim at the collar and sleeves. Her fiery red hair swished as she took the stairs.  
“Where did you find that gown?” Hermione asked. “I would have loved some pyjamas!”  
“There’s a girl’s room, its full of old clothes, that whole expensive, witchy, Madame Malkins Victorian look. I’m glad Mum never made me wear all that,” Ginny said.  
“That was my sister’s room. Cordelia,” Sirius said.  
“You had a sister? What happened to her?” Harry asked.  
Sirius didn’t seem to have heard the question, and offered Ginny pancakes.  
They all ate breakfast, and Ron helped Remus with the dishes.

“Harry, can we talk?” Ginny asked.  
“Yeah, sure,” he said, and they went to a parlor. Harry couldn’t help but notice that Ginny’s gown was slightly sheer and gave a shadowed impression of her slim hipped form as she walked.  
“I’m sorry,” she said.  
Harry was mystified. “What are you sorry for, Ginny?” he asked.  
“I told you that you weren’t being possessed by Voldemort. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have just assumed, like that,” she said.  
“Ginny…” Harry sighed. “Its okay. He wanted to fool us all, and that’s what he did. He sets out to do these things. He sets out to hurt people, and he does. Remus said that we have to give up taking capricious risks, and relying on luck, that we need to be skilled and have plans, instead.”  
Ginny nodded, taking all this in with a serious frown, the way she did when she was listening to him instruct at the D.A. Like Harry, Ginny had gone into the Ministry half-cocked with misinformation, now she’d put her misstep behind her and wanted to come back stronger.  
“What are you smirking about?” she asked.  
“Didn’t realize I was. Its just that your gown looks like Ron’s dress robes,” Harry said.  
Ginny laughed. “Oy, its not my fault Sirius’s family was posh! Wonder what happened to his sister?”  
“I get the feeling he doesn’t want to talk about it,” Harry said.  
“Well, there’s other ways to find out,” Ginny said. She waved for Harry to follow her, and they entered the room whose walls’ showpiece was the tapestry of the Black family tree.  
“Hmm…here we are: Cordelia Maia Black. Looks like she had a daughter, Ophelia Asterope Black…no husband, though…and she and her baby died in the same year. Oh, that’s so sad…she was only 18. Looks like she was the oldest, a few years older than Sirius,” Ginny said. “So sad…”  
“No wonder he didn’t want to talk about it,” Harry said.  
“Eighteen years old. Blimey, I can’t imagine being a mum that young. It looks like something went wrong with the birth,” Ginny said.  
She seemed sad. Harry put his arm around her. When he looked down, he could see the small, pert curve of her breasts through the thin white gown. He flinched away as if her body heat had burned him. The heat didn’t leave him, however, and instead he felt as if fever had struck him.  
Ginny’s brown eyes met his, and he noticed what a shade of brown they were, light brown eyes the color of whiskey, that drew the light and cradled it. Then the rest of Ginny came into focus- her long hair the color of fire, her slender and kittenish freckled face, her small, slender body, outlined by Cordelia’s gown.  
“I want to find out more about her,” Ginny said.  
“Um…we could look around her room. Maybe there’s some letters or photos up there,” Harry said.  
Ginny hesitated. “All right…” she said, and Harry realized they were going to be alone together in a bedroom.  
‘Its just Ginny,’ he told himself. She was a fixture of his summers at the Weasleys, always either side by side with Hermione, or solitarily headed off to….do what, exactly? Harry realized that he had no idea how she spent her time if she wasn’t talking to Hermione or helping her mother cook, which he had noticed she didn’t seem to enjoy. What did Ginny like to do? What was she like, outside of the shy little girl who had once been so enamored of him she gave him a Valentine’s Day poem and singing ‘get well’ card?  
Well, for one thing, she was gorgeous…being close to her gave him a fever, Harry thought. Ginny’s thoughts, on the other hand, seemed consumed by Cordelia Black. She led the way up to the lost girl’s room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny and Harry investigate Cordelia Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title 'Who's That Girl' has come to have different meanings. It can refer to Leta's appearance in everyone's lives, or to the mystery of what became of Cordelia Black and who she really was, of Harry's and Remus's bafflement as they get to know their respective love interests, Ginny and Nymphadora, who are full of surprises.

Ginevra had been avoiding her mother. She didn’t want to be fussed over, scolded, or told one more time that she needed to “preoccupy herself”. When she wrote to her mother that she had made the Quidditch team, Molly’s response had been,  
“I’m glad to see you are preoccupying yourself! You can’t take war and rumors of war to heart. You must learn how to carry on while other people fight.”  
She had skipped a month in writing home, after that. When she learned defensive spells in the DA, she had the presence of her brothers to reinforce that she was doing the right thing, and didn’t think about her mother’s disapproval. Ginny wasn’t like her mother-she couldn’t knit and cook through a war, read tabloids and tend chickens. There was a fire inside her, from the moment Harry reappeared at the head of the maze clutching Cedric Diggory’s dead body, saying, “He’s back!”  
He’s back…Tom…Voldemort.   
“Not him,” Ginny’s mind, heart, and soul had said.   
He can’t come back. He can’t win. Only she knew how dangerous he was…how he felt like your best friend, how you fell in love with him as he made you dance to his tune, dance to your death. She couldn’t blame Harry for not wanting a girl who had that knowledge…it was more like being a Death Eater than being a hero destined to slay him. She had fallen for Tom, followed him, committed his dark work for him. Cho, however, was like him-she had lost someone she loved to Voldemort. She was sure they would work things out, at school. For now, at least, he was following her to Cordelia Black’s room.  
“Where should we start?” he asked.  
“What do you mean?” she asked. He was the one with all the ideas, usually, leading the way.  
“Well, where do girls put important, secret things?” Harry asked.  
“It depends on the girl, doesn’t it? I mean, we are people,” Ginny said.  
Harry’s emerald green eyes bugged, and he sputtered, “Yeah, I know, but…” then he sighed, unable to put into words what he wanted to say.  
She noticed that that happened to Harry.  
“You’re so different from in the books,” she blurted.  
“What books?” he asked.  
“Er….” Ginny said. “There are these children’s books, and some comics too, about you…I mean, the way everyone thought you would be. Like, a little Dumbledore, or Merlin…having these adventures, and saving people from, like, monsters…dragons, and such. Anyway, the firm that handles your family’s finances sued the people who made them, I guess because they didn’t have the permission to use the Potter name…oh, and there were dolls…”  
“You had one. At the train station, when I first met Ron,” he said.  
Ginny felt seasick. “You remember?”  
“Of course. I’d never met a whole family of wizards, before. I remember everything about every time I’ve been around your family,” he said.  
“Oh…” Ginny said.  
She didn’t know what to say about that. To her, her family were who they were. Her dad was forgetful and odd, and worked a lot…but, he had also snuck out to the Muggle shops to get her Barbie dolls and Muggle sweets. Her mum was a pain, but she was also quite funny when she really let her opinions loose. Her eldest brothers, Bill and Charlie, had treated her like a princess, so she quite doted on them, but Fred and George were the ones she had wanted to be with and be like. Percy was a great help, when in a generous mood, he seemed to know everything about the way the world worked. Ron….got on her nerves just by breathing, with his laughable attempts to be cool. But, he was okay to climb trees and catch frogs with. Harry’s intensity, a sort of hungry longing, for family threw in relief that she had one, and he didn’t, really-just Sirius, who was quite fun and kind when he wasn’t drunk and depressed…but that wasn’t much, and they didn’t get to spend much time together.   
“So, that’s why people stared at me, when I started school-these books,” he said, sounding baffled.  
That, at least, was like the books. After saving some village, and being thanked by the mayor or something, at the end of the story, the fictional Harry would say something humble like, “Don’t thank me-I’m just Harry Potter!” Those bits were corny, but Ginny liked the adventures, anyway.   
“Yeah,” she admitted, apologetically.   
Harry sighed. “Okay, well, I guess I’ll look under the bed,” he said. Ginny followed his lead, and began to look through the drawers and wardrobe, under the bed, in the closet.   
Cordelia’s room smelled like soured rosewater and lavender sachets, and dust. Her clothes were charmed, as expensive witches’ clothing often was, to resist dust, moths, and wrinkles, but the closet and under the beds, covers and carpets were not. Harry and Ginny sneezed often in their search. If they were close, they could make a contest of it, whose was the loudest, who had the mightiest spray…or, they could charm their noses to use the sneeze spray to form comic book action words: BAM! POW!, etc. Fred and George would do that…but, Ginny didn’t know how. It was hard for her to concentrate in school. The only class she was really good at was Potions, because you did something with your hands the whole time. Even Snape didn’t give her a hard time because her grades were so good…but, sometimes he stared at her as if he was seeing someone else, with a sadness that Ginny had thought she was imagining at first.   
Everyone has a secret, she had learned quickly, in life.   
“Oy, I’ve got it!” she said, and found Cordelia’s diary in a hope chest.  
“Well done,” Harry said, with a warm smile. She knew not to take it personally-he liked successful results, in Quidditch, at the D.A. He liked when things went well.  
“I almost feel like we shouldn’t though. Diaries are personal,” she said.  
“That makes them good clues,” Harry said.  
Clues? A person’s most private wishes and pain? What an impersonal way to put it! As infectious as his happiness was, every other emotion Harry shoved aside, she had noticed.   
Ginny and Harry opened the diary, and read,  
“Dear Diary,  
I feel as if Regulus and Sirius are my own children, so I feel that I have failed when Mother punishes them. All I know how to do, really, is to make a worse fuss to distract her. However, this has quite doubled round on me-now, she sees me as quite irredeemable. I am not angry, because I have realized that anger comes from wanting something to change. Mother will not change. Father is so tender and understanding when he is in a good mood, that when Mother does these things, my whole body is screaming for him to come and stop it, to be better, to make it better, to make it stop.   
Tomorrow, I will practice my calligraphy, and work on watercolor painting, as well. I have been idle this summer.”

Ginny shut the book. She was horrified. Cordelia didn’t need to speak in detail about Regulus’s and Sirius’s punishment, and what sort of ‘things’ her Mother did, because in diaries we speak to ourselves-we know what happened, we are just trying to sort out why. But, it was clearly so normalized to her that in its wake she made plans to practice her hobbies the next day. It made Ginny feel cold and sick, as if she had a sudden fever.   
She looked at Harry. Though his emotion swung from hot to cold, Ginny couldn’t imagine anyone wouldn’t feel the way she did, right now.  
He opened it again, as if drawn to do so, and Ginny saw written on the page,  
“…Sirius is my little friend. He likes the things I show him, but I feel guilty every step of the way. He wanted to come to the cinema, he likes the music I show him, and when I was melancholy today he began playing an Elton John song on the piano, and we sang together. What have I done? I am selfish to need someone to share these things with, to pull him into my world, to endanger him this way, but it is nice to have someone in this house to talk to…”  
He shut it again.   
“Bloody Hell! You’d think she had him doing drugs. Kids shouldn’t have to be afraid of their parents finding out they’re going to the cinema and listening to the radio!” Ginny declared passionately.   
“Its not Cordelia’s fault she’s scared. Not every family’s like yours’,” Harry said. “Can I hold onto this?”  
Ginny wasn’t sure why he was asking, but she nodded her agreement.

Cordelia Black’s diary felt like a long letter to someone who would never answer, didn’t know they were being written to, didn’t exist. Harry lay in his bedroom at Grimmauld, reading it: the mind laid bare of a young woman about his age. Except for Hermione, no girl had ever told him her thoughts and feelings this way. Cordelia wrote with joie de vivre and detail about the banal-girls at school and what she thought about them, days at school, exams, trips to Hogsmeade, but also clothes, music, what it felt like to sneak out to Muggle London, to shoplift clothing and vinyl records, to charm the Victrola at home to play Queen and David Bowie…she quoted their lyrics in her diary entries, and transcribed the words to whole songs in calligraphy festooned with doodled flowers and vines. This Cordelia was funny, enthusiastic, and Harry felt as if they were walking side by side on the Hogsmeade High Street. He imagined she would talk with her hands, and have a sweet, self-deprecating laugh when she said out loud, as she often did in cheeky asides in her diary,  
“Oh, sorry, have I gone on too long?”  
“No, keep going,” Harry would tell her.  
But, not all of her entries were about music and friends. Not all of her time at home in London during summer hols was spent sneaking out to concerts, the cinema, and record stores…she wrote often of her Mother’s anger.  
“Mummy tossed all the clothes out of my closet, looking for it….”  
“The way Mother grabbed Sirius’s arm, he’s just a boy, I had to do something….”  
“Sirius tried to take the blame, Mother saw through it, she got out her wand, and….”  
“I can hear her screaming downstairs, my whole body is tense…”  
Waiting for the tension to burst, waiting for the ugly scene to pass, restrictions and the defiant need to break them even though you know the cost will be dear, the predictable battles will reignite…Harry knew all of these things. He treasured Cordelia’s words, the sight of her handwriting, even if she was just making a list of albums. Albums she hadn’t got, yet, albums she had stolen, albums friends had given her, David Bowie’s albums so far, albums with nice covers.   
He wondered if her music was still in the attic, and if there were any pictures of her.  
“Dear Diary,” Harry read, “The best time to listen to music is 3 a.m, with one lamp on in the attic, all of London outside the window, some of it lit, some of it sleeping. Charm the walls, so no one will wake. I am the last man on earth, like the man who sold the world, and I dance in my chemise, with no shoes on. Magic and music make me safe like a shield.”  
It was like a poem. Cordelia didn’t just tell him how she felt, she wrapped him in her truth like an ornate shawl. There were no misunderstandings, like with Cho, nor the awkwardness that sometimes befell him and Ginny.   
“I have got a camera! The pictures slide right out,” Cordelia wrote. “This is me, in my mirror”.  
Pasted to her diary was a Polaroid. She had photographed her reflection in the mirror. Cordelia was tall, thin, her face had a proud and even symmetry, and she had striking gray eyes and long, dark hair.   
Harry closed the diary. Just like when he glimpsed Ginny through her nightgown, he felt burned.

He hadn’t meant to wake at 3 a.m, but its as if she called to him. He found her albums, and the Victrola she had charmed to play them. He lit the kerosene lamp, opened the window to London, and charmed the walls for silence.   
‘I was dancing when I was 12/ I was dancing when I was 12/ I danced myself out of the womb/I danced myself out of the tomb/ is it strange to dance so soon?’ sang a singer whose name Harry didn’t know over slow music.   
A song Harry didn’t know rose from the spinning black disc.   
He didn’t know the band, T.Rex, and it became clear, very fast, that Cordelia was not by his side to enthuse about her love for them or talk about the meaning of the lyrics. She was not there. She never would be, and she had never known Harry.   
He heard steps on the attic stairs. Deep down, he knew it wouldn’t be a tall, brunette girl with gray eyes and a naughty smirk. It was Ginny, her red hair the same color as the writhing flame on the wick of the lamp, swelling and reaching in the embrace of the glass globe. The flame danced, and threw a shadow of Ginny as soon as she stepped into its light.   
“Hey. Don’t you sleep?” she asked.  
“I guess I couldn’t put the diary down. These were Cordelia’s things,” Harry said. “she felt really…real.”  
“There’s something about diaries. You put everything in them,” Ginny said.  
“I guess this is why you didn’t want to read it?” Harry asked.  
“Sort of. She had an unhappy life,” she said.  
“I don’t think so. She had a rotten family, and you can’t help that, but she found all the happiness she could, everywhere she could,” Harry said.  
“It shouldn’t be like that. She was just a kid,” Ginny said.  
“You think everything is always perfect, just because you’re a kid?” Harry said.  
“No, Harry-I’m saying it should be. Adults who are your family should try to make it as perfect as they can,” Ginny said.  
Harry sighed. He didn’t know what else to say to Ginny. Either you knew, or you didn’t, that the truth was sometimes different. Cordelia knew, and Harry felt like he was getting to know her…but, she was dead. He had gotten hung up on her words, on the things she had left behind. Ginny was alive, and she was sitting beside him on the attic floor.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius and Harry have a talk about Cordelia, dreams, and the future; Leta makes a request of Tonks

“The Ministry’s aware of your involvement in the Order of the Phoenix, and find your actions at the Department of Mysteries valiant,” Nymphadora told Sirius. “And, they’ve tasked me with bringing you in to accept your pardon. You’re a free man, Cuz-you’ve just got to sign on the dotted line.”  
“Nope,” Sirius said, leaning back on the hind legs of his chair.  
The eyes of everyone present, save for a determinedly indifferent Snape, flew to Sirius.  
“Absolutely not. I trust you, Dora, but not your bosses. If this is truly a pardon, not a trap, they can meet me on neutral ground for their bloody photo op,” Sirius said.  
“Neutral ground? What place did you have in mind, Sirius?” Arthur asked.  
“Hogwarts, naturally. The one place in our world where, despite their best efforts, they’ve never truly had a foothold,” Sirius said.  
Tonks smiled. She did like her cousin’s nerve. The chair beside him, usually occupied by Remus, was empty. It looked weird-one never really saw one of them without the other. Remus was on one of his missions, living amongst wolves, speaking their language, pretending to share their violent nationalist sentiments. She had never seen him in action as a spy, but she couldn’t imagine gentle Remus, with his dry wit and subtle compassion, slipping into the skin of an agitator for wolfish uprising.  
Who knew what was in anyone else’s heart? Everyone was a mystery, to everyone else. Remus had so misunderstood her, thinking that she was in love with Sirius…because their family notably married their cousins? Because she was a woman and he was a man? Because she sometimes laughed at his jokes? She didn’t really understand.  
“Well, I think that can be easily facilitated. Er, Severus, could you convey Sirius’s wishes to Dumbledore?” Arthur Weasley asked delicately.  
All eyes were on Snape, scrutiny as to whether he would evince any distaste at the task of helping the man he loathed. He merely nodded.  
Good-that wouldn’t be an impediment.  
“Thank you, Professor,” Tonks felt compelled to say. He had been her Potions professor, after all.  
He nodded cordially to her, and even met her eyes-she had been a good student, which seemed to go a long way, with him; he was always respectful to her.  
When the meeting adjourned, Tonks walked into someone on her way out.  
“Oh, gosh, sorry!” She said.  
“Quite all right. Its you I was waiting for, actually, Auror Tonks,” said Leta LeStrange.  
Tonks had never aspired to be a beautiful woman, because she figured you either had it or you didn’t, and she reckoned that she didn’t. Her jaw was heavy, her eyes were deep set, and she had that ratty sort of hair that split at the ends and stubbornly wouldn’t grow long. She realized that as a Metamorphmagus, she could look any way she chose-but, she thought that would be a cheat. Leta LeStrange was a natural born beauty, with fine cheekbones, lustrous skin, thick, long hair, a figure drawn as if by an Art Nouveau poster artist, lines and curves both drawing the eye in, and haunted but fiery eyes. All that beauty was fixed on Tonks-she clearly had a request.  
“What can I do to help you, Ms. LeStrange? The Ministry deeply regrets not detecting your presence behind the Veil for all this time. You’re well within your rights to want to file a complaint, to seek recompense for damage and distress,” Tonks said.  
“I rather think that processing time would be intolerably lengthy, given the recent…changes, at the Ministry,” Leta said, with dry irony.  
Tonks caught her meaning, and smiled.  
“Well, yeah. Between you and me, the lunatics are on the grass,” Tonks said.  
Leta gave a curious smile, but of course a woman stuck in a time warp since 1933 didn’t get her Pink Floyd reference. Remus would have, she thought wistfully.  
“Actually, I hadn’t thought of pursuing any sort of complaint. I’d like to find someone. Have you ever heard the name Theseus Scamander?” Leta asked.  
“Oh, is he any relation to Newt?! I was bloody obsessed with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, growing up! Read it cover to cover a million times, starting from when I was 12, and Care of Magical Creatures was one of my best subjects! I figured I’d become a Magizoologist for a long while there. My mate, Charlie, did become a Dragonologist-” Tonks enthused, and Leta quite justifiably interrupted her.  
“Yes,” Leta said. “In answer to your question about Newt, they are related. Quite closely, in fact. Theseus is his brother. Theseus was an Auror…and, my fiancé. I’d like to know what became of him. You don’t suppose you could use your clearance to have a look at some old records...?”  
Tonks composed herself, and nodded. “The Ministry owes you,” she said. “I’ll see to it.”  
As she walked away from Leta LeStrange, Nymphadora felt peaceful and purposeful. Arranging Sirius’s pardon and finding Theseus Scamander would keep her mind off Remus, what he might be doing, where he was, and if he had ever really known her, at all. 

“Love is careless in its choosing….” David Bowie sang from the Victrola. Harry had moved it, and some of Cordelia’s records, down to his room. He was folding some laundry Mrs. Weasley had dropped in, when Sirius paused at the eaves of his open door.  
“I haven’t heard that song in ages,” Sirius said, with a wistful smile. “Ziggy Stardust…”  
“Um, David Bowie, actually,” Harry said.  
Sirius threw his head back and laughed. “Ziggy Stardust is David Bowie. It was his…alter ego. He’d get done up in makeup and crazy costumes, say he was a space alien rock star from another planet.”  
Cordelia had written about what Ziggy’s planet must be like, Harry remembered:  
“There must be music in the rain, and the grass grows soft as clouds. And you lie in the cloudgrass side by side with me, kissing in the rain…” Harry had mouthed the words out loud as he read, and he kept thinking of them the day after as he helped Sirius make breakfast, as he did his summer homework. He wondered who ‘You’ was, who it was Cordelia had wanted to kiss on another planet?  
“Wonder why?” Harry said.  
“Well, it made him stand out. And, sometimes its easier to do what scares you if you pretend to be someone else,” Sirius said. “Did you get that out of the attic?”  
“I’m sorry, I’ll put it back,” Harry said hurriedly.  
“No, no, Harry, you’re welcome to anything you find-within reason. There are some pretty malevolent trinkets around here, you know that. But, those were Cordelia’s things,” Sirius said, as if whatever Cordelia had touched was exempt from the Black dark magic, blessed and sanctified.  
“Your sister,” Harry said.  
“Yeah. I shouldn’t have brushed you off when you asked. Its just hard to talk about. But, Harry, you’re my family,” Sirius said. He sat on Harry’s bed. Harry sat beside him, and explained, “Cordelia was older than me. She….she was a force of nature. Creative, smart, a bit wild. She had ideas of her own. The harder Mother tried to break her, the more she became who she wanted to be. She always tried to get between me and Mum. She was fearless, that way.”  
“Was she in Gryffindor?” Harry asked.  
“No, Slytherin…and she had that slippery side, to be sure. She snuck away from home a lot. Took me with her, when I was older, when I got to be about 13. She took me to see ‘Harold And Maude’, at the cinema, and to Bowie’s last Ziggy Stardust performance at the Hammersmith…” Sirius said. “You should have seen all the girls dressed as aliens, crying for Ziggy.”  
“What happened to Cordelia?” Harry asked.  
Sirius said, “She got pregnant. Some Muggle bloke she was seeing. Mother pulled her out of school….Purebloods give birth at home…but, my mother was no Healer…it didn’t go right…Cordelia and the baby, they both….I was at school, when it happened, me and Reg…”  
Sirius cleared his throat needlessly, many times. Harry wanted to reach out and put a comforting hand on his godfather’s shoulder, but he didn’t know how to feel and act on these things.  
“She was a good person,” Sirius said, as if insisting in defense of her, to someone who had said otherwise.  
To that, Harry longed to add, and she was beautiful…it was so odd that he knew her dreams, and her fears, and her favorite songs, but he had never known her. He knew he should tell Sirius about the diary, that it might even comfort him…but, Harry didn’t, couldn’t do this. He needed it, needed Cordelia’s confessions about listening to music at 3 a.m. and kissing in the rain.  
“She sounds really great,” Harry said.  
Sirius smiled. “Her daughter was called Ophelia. She’d be all grown, now,” he said. “Well, no more sad stories! I have some good news.”  
He was forcing himself to sound happy, as he often did. Harry went along because the last thing he wanted was to alarm Sirius.  
“Are you pardoned? They were saying you might be!” Harry said.  
Sirius broke into a true smile, and nodded. “That’s right. Those idiots figured out I’m about as much a murderer as Snape is the cover star of the Sexiest Man Alive issue of Witch Weekly.”  
Harry rolled with laughter. “So, when can we go?” Harry asked.  
“Go where, Harry?” Sirius asked.  
“You said, remember? That you couldn’t wait to show me South America? The glaciers in Chile, and the beaches in Costa Rica?” Harry said.  
“Ah, in my letters…yes, well, Harry, that was before the war, you see. I still want to teach you to surf in Costa Rica, but, we’ll have to see this thing through, first. Do our bit, and when the job’s done, we can chase the sun together. And, we’ll drag Remus along-if ever a fellow needed sun, its Moony!” Sirius said.  
“You promise?” Harry asked.  
“I swear by Cordelia,” Sirius said solemnly. “You know what that means to me-and, I can imagine what it means to you.”  
He slipped his hand under Harry’s pillow, and extracted the diary.  
“You’ve seen me with it?” Harry asked.  
“I was raised by Slytherins, remember? I can dissemble, when I need to,” Sirius said.  
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to be nosy, or disrespect her memory. I know this will sound odd, but…I liked getting to know her. I mean, her thoughts and things…” Harry said.  
“Don’t worry-Moony, Wormtail, and your dad fancied her, too,” Sirius said. “Everyone loved her. Well, not Mother. I think she was jealous-that it was so easy for Cordie. She was beautiful, she was charming, people were drawn to her, Father adored her, in his way. My mother wasn’t an easy woman, and the way others didn’t warm to her made her a bitter woman.”  
“Like my Aunt. She told me, when I found out I was a wizard, that her parents loved my mother, they were proud that she was a witch…but she was the only one who could see through her, that she was a freak,” Harry said.  
“Lily was the most talented witch I ever knew. And it wasn’t all just books and study…she had heart. Don’t you ever let anyone make you ashamed of being her son!” Sirius said. “That woman saved my life. We weren’t friends at first, mind-I’d done things of which she didn’t approve. But, when we really got to know each other…it was like Cordelia had come back to me. I was loved, again.”  
“I’ve got this picture of you and Mum,” Harry said, and took his photo album out from under his bed. It was the picture of Sirius exuberantly hugging Harry’s mother in her bridal finery, both of them laughing and elated.  
Sirius smile at the sight of it. The Polaroid of Cordelia fell from her diary.  
“I think this goes here,” Harry said, and slipped the Polaroid under the laminated sleeve. Cordelia smirked playfully beside his laughing mother. Sirius hugged Harry around his shoulders.  
“I’m going to accept the pardon, sign for it, and all, at Hogwarts,” Sirius told him.  
Harry smiled. “I’ll be there,” he promised.  
“Harry…can I give you some advice? Don’t get so lost in the past that you can’t see what’s right in front of you. Its always easier to dream than to do,” Sirius said. “but dreams can’t love you back.”  
“I know. I guess its just hard to talk to normal girls. I mean, Cho….she was everything I thought I wanted: smart, beautiful, good at Quidditch. But, she didn’t understand, really, what we were doing with the D.A., why its important to believe that Voldemort is back, and how to prepare to beat him. She believed, but she didn’t really understand,” Harry said.  
“You’ve been through the kinds of things that would change anyone, Harry. You’re so young, so you’ve grown up fast, in some ways. Its only natural that its hard to talk to kids who’ve had a different sort of life,” Sirius said. “Its not your fault, or their’s. Just don’t try to force anything out of yourself, or anyone else, or beat yourself up about it. I know its not quite the same, but…I always felt alone, keeping secret how things really were here, with my family. I couldn’t tell anyone why I was feeling how I was feeling, what made me how I was. And, I was protecting the very people causing me pain, and I was angry about that. “  
“Yeah! That’s how I feel! I mean, angry, all the time…” Harry said.  
Sirius soothingly rubbed his shoulders.  
“I wish I could take that pain from you. I’m glad, if my sister made you feel better about it. She always made me feel better,” Sirius said. “Usually with music!”  
“Yeah, it does help,” Harry said, and together they played Cordelia’s records. Leta wandered in as  
“Tiny Dancer” by Elton John played.  
“Oh, was I not invited to your soiree?” she joked airily.  
Harry hadn’t seen much of Leta, but he had been told that she was trapped in the Veil and Sirius rescued her, and that she had helped Lupin duel the Death Eater Dolohov. They had obviously become close. Harry thought that was quite nice-he hated leaving Sirius alone to go back to school, with just a hippogriff and Firewhiskey. Now, he had a friend.  
“Come ‘ere,” he said, and held his hand out to her.  
They danced. Leta’s firm and finely curved body shifted in her silk dress as she moved gracefully in time with Sirius, who looked young and delighted, as he had at the Potters’ wedding. Harry thought he saw Ginny’s flame red hair, like a torch being carried, swishing just out of sight as she darted down the hall.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leta comforts Sirius, faces off with Walburga's portrait, and inadvertently irks Snape

Leta lay in Sirius’s arms. He was sleeping soundly, nude beneath an old velvet coverlet, and nestled into the curves of Leta’s body, his face resting in her bosom, as if she was a pillow.  
“Dear boy,” she murmured, though his dark hair was touched with gray, and though she had been at school with his parents, she looked like a girl of 25.   
“Leta…I’ll get you out of here. Don’t worry….don’t be afraid…” Sirius murmured.  
“Oh, no, Sirius, wake up. We aren’t behind the Veil any longer, dear boy. Wake up,” she said, coaxingly nudging him.  
He woke up, with a dog like snarl. Then, his eyes lit on her, and his expression shone with humanity.  
“Bugger,” Sirius muttered. “Azkaban?”  
“No, the Veil,” she said.  
“One out of two ain’t bad,” he said, and sat up. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”  
“Frightened? No, you have appeased my feminine vanity. Even in your dreams, you were speaking to me,” she cooed.   
Sirius smiled. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, Leta.”  
“You freely admit that you don’t remember any women from before…but, I’ll take what I can get,” Leta said.  
Sirius laughed hoarsely. When he was merry, he looked his age, a man in the prime of life. He had loved her in joy, in their big, warm bed, affectionate and thorough, with just enough playfulness in his ardor, more pleased than he would let on about the pardon. He reiterated that the life of a fugitive didn’t bother him overmuch, but to be free meant he could have more of a say in Harry’s life, and that made him so happy. Leta loved feeling his happiness in his touch, in his kiss, in the way he held her. His expression turned serious, and he said,  
“Leta, now that its all out in the open….the war is going to take a turn. Things got dark, last time,” Sirius said.  
“Sirius, all I know is dark. Families like our’s…you know. They do nothing if not prepare one to face the darkness,” Leta said.  
“We had our own world in the Veil. Nothing changed, and there was only you and I,” he said, caressing her cheek.  
“Not so different from our bedroom,” she said, sailing her fingers through his hair, and tugging it a bit. He closed his eyes, and shuddered, arching his neck submissively, bearing it to her. She took the offered skin, and kissed his neck.  
“My love….if the time to run comes, I want you to run. Go to France, go to America, go wherever is safe,” Sirius said.  
“We’ll cross those bridges when we come to them,” She said airily. “My first concern is to redecorate this dolorous house!”  
Sirius laughed heartily. “Have at it-but we gave that a go this summer, to little effect. My mother’s portrait doesn’t exactly set a cozy mood,” she said.  
“Well, she wasn’t known for her beauty, Wally. You must take after your father,” Leta said. “All right, let’s see it.” Leta threw off the covers, and slid a dressing gown on and belted it. Sirius did the same, and followed her, warning,  
“Wait! Mother doesn’t like to be surprised!”   
Leta strode down the stairs, and was indeed greeted by the visage of Mrs. Black, screaming, “Defilement! Impurity! Blood Traitors, in the house of my fathers!”  
“Oh, shut it, Wally!” Leta said. Sirius’s eyes bugged.   
Walburga Black stopped her tirade, and looked at Leta in awe.  
“Leta LeStrange? But…you’re long dead!” she said.  
“So are you, and yet here you are, distressing guests and children with your tiresome harangue. Have done, girl!” Leta said, her voice snapping like a whip.  
“I say! This is not Hogwarts! You may be two years ahead of me, Miss Le Strange, but we are girls no longer, and this is my house! I shan’t take orders from you!” Walburga said. Sirius watched the exchange, stunned.  
“I presume your authority derives from the fact that you are the most senior residing female member of the Black family?” Leta said.  
“Why, yes!” Walburga said, affronted.  
“But, Wally, you are dead. Meaning the most senior residing member of the house of Black, living, is Molly Weasley,” Leta said.  
“And, what of it?” Walburga snapped.   
“What of it? Well, that means, my dear, as mistress of the house, Molly’s wishes are our guide. And, I distinctly heard her say, ‘I wish we could shut that portrait’s gob for once and for all’. Direct quote, dear, sorry-not my personal feeling,” Leta said.  
“Molly Weasley? That barely legitimate hedge witch who married down into a nest of blood traitors, and keeps plaguing the world with her ginger haired brats?! Mistress of my house?!” Walburga said. “You’re a liar, LeStrange! And a murderer!”  
“And you’re a portrait. And you’re coming down,” Leta said. “Sirius?”  
He hesitated-defying his mother so finally still felt impossible. But, he aimed his wand at his mother, and said,   
“Silencio! Somnus!”  
Walburga fell silent, and then slept, and looked like just a painting one would find on the walls of a museum. When he tried to lift the frame from the wall, it came down.  
“I take it you and Mother didn’t get on in school?” Sirius asked.  
“She was a little beast as a child…but, I had no idea she would grow up to be the least tender mother in London,” Leta said.   
“I didn’t need her. I had Cordelia. A mother is someone who loves you like a mother, and that’s all you need,” Sirius said. “It haunts me that she never got to be a mother to Ophelia. She would have been one happy little girl, with a mother like Cordelia.”  
Leta smiled, and kissed Sirius’s cheek. “Let’s put this thing in the cellar. Not the attic, for your sister loved it so, up there.”  
Sirius looked at her with gratitude, for understanding.

Leta made good on her word, and began making 12, Grimmauld Place tasteful and welcoming. Her tastes were still stamped from the time before she was trapped in the Veil by Grindelwald, the late 20s, and ran towards the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements: posters by Toulouse de Lautrec and Moucha, Japanese Ukiyo-e scrolls and woodblock prints, shoji screens and rock crystal sculpture, depictions of Europe’s pagan past in swirling modern lines and soft, Asian inspired colors. Molly grumbled at some of her choices, longing to sneak in a crochet knitted afghan here and there, but Leta’s assertion that Molly deserved to be considered a member of the Black family won her prevailing goodwill that translated to restraint, on Molly’s end. They came to an unspoken treaty that the kitchen was Molly’s domain, the look and feel of the house was Leta’s.   
With the tension with Molly diffused, Sirius had more time to devote to Harry, and they shared many fulfilling talks in the days leading up to the end of summer hols.   
Pretending to be so busy transfiguring broken and indifferent flotsam into works of art she remembered, or Wally’s old rags into silk embroidered kimonos and Elsa Schiaperelli-inspired Surrealist skirt suits, Leta found out a lot about the war effort.   
“You’ve been arranging those orchids for the better part of two hours, Ms. Le Strange,” Severus Snape said pointedly, on one occasion. She was not surprised to find out that this dolorous, humorless man in severe black robes was head of her old school house, Slytherin. Sirius had informed her that Snape had never aspired to be anything but a dark wizard, since they were just boys.   
“He hid it well enough from the one person who mattered, but when she dropped him, he didn’t bother,” Sirius had commented.  
“Oh, so it’s always a woman, is it?” Leta chided. 

To Snape, now, she said, “I don’t recall us being introduced, yet you call me by my name.”  
He almost grimaced, plagued by being shown up in his own over-familiarity. He had wanted to call her out for spying on Order of the Phoenix talks, and had only made himself look rough in manners.   
He recovered-he clearly preferred stoic dignity to any shows of emotion.   
“Severus Snape, Master of Potions, and Head of Slytherin House, at Hogwarts,” he said formally.  
“Ah. You must work extensively with plants, Master Snape,” Leta said.  
“Yes,” he said, curiously.  
“Then you will know, that these are not orchids, they are lilies,” she said.   
Snape looked furious. His face, already pale, drained of color, and his eyes were not just black, they were opaque. He looked at her as if he would like to take off her face and find the wires beneath and switch their programming around to a more pleasing setting.   
He stalked off, and Leta wondered what had so upset him about the word ‘lily’.


	6. Chapter 6

“Are you coming home with us, Harry?” Ron asked, at the breakfast table.  
Ginny looked up from her scrambled eggs, and waited for Harry’s answer. He had spent the summer with her family when she was 12-after Fred, George, and Ron stole her father’s car and rescued him from his aunt and uncles house-they had all lived at Grimmauld Place together the previous summer, and the summer before that he went to the World Cup with her family. Despite that, her mother’s old fashioned morals about mixed company between boys and girls prevailed, and she was usually lumped in with Hermione while Ron, Harry, and Ginny’s other brothers spent time together. Harry looked towards Sirius and Leta LeStrange, and then at Mrs. Weasley.  
Ginny took in everyone’s expressions: Sirius was wearing a gracefully acquiescent expression, bracing himself for, and allowing Harry to make, a positive assent to Ron’s question.  
“I’m sure we’ll wend out that way,” Leta answered before Harry could. “We’ll be looking at some property in Cornwall, and, after all, Devon is notoriously close to it!”  
Remus Lupin looked bemused at Leta’s small joke, which touched lightly on the rivalry between the two counties. Harry clearly looked relieved that he could have the best of both outcomes: some quality time with his now pardoned godfather, and a visit to the Burrow.  
“Property?” Molly said, and Ginny squirmed with embarrassment, the way she did whenever Molly questioned someone’s choices rudely to their face, or wore ponchos.  
“Yes,” Leta said silkenly. “Sirius is a free man, he can use his assets at Gringott’s freely, and as rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated, clearly, I’ve written my bank in France, and have also been restored to independence.”  
“But, Number 12 is the Order’s headquarters! You can’t simply abandon ship!” Molly said.  
“The Order can have it, I don’t have to live here,” Sirius said, and his characteristically brusque tone and direct words struck Molly, once again, as rude. Her eyes widened in affrontation.  
‘Mum, calm down,’ Ginny thought.  
“Anyway, aren’t you going home, too?” Sirius pointed out.  
“Yes, but that’s quite different!” Molly replied huffily.  
“Why Cornwall, Leta? Do you like it there?” Ginny asked.  
“I’ve heard most charming reports of it, especially the beaches,” Leta said, taking the save. “and, the siren population is quite high, isn’t it? Imagine, an old manor by the shore, with good views of the water, and siren song drifting through the open windows, borne on a sea wind.”  
Ginny smiled. Leta was so classy, smart, refined, and subtle. She had to stop herself from simply staring agog as she moved through the house in her expensive looking clothes, that somehow snugly fit her body and flowed gracefully around it, all at once, leaving a trail of spicy-musky Shalimar scent in her wake.  
“That sounds nice,” Ginny said.  
“Cornwall-mate, we can learn to surf!” Ron said.  
“Yeah!” Harry said enthusiastically, and they high-fived.  
“Shouldn’t you have your name cleared, properly, before you make any big purchases?” Molly asked.  
“That’s all just a matter of paperwork, now,” Sirius said.  
“Gwel an Mor,” Leta said. “Whatever house we settle on, it will be by the water, and we shall call it Gwel an Mor: it means ‘Sea View’.”  
Sirius smiled adoringly at her. Their eyes met, and Ginny felt embers pass in their gaze, and a deep affection that made her want to look away-it seemed to demand privacy. She wished someone would look at her that way, with a molten mix of appreciation, affection, and desire. It was clear in Sirius’s eyes that he felt all of this for Leta, and the gesture was pregnant with many meanings and feelings when he took her hand and kissed it.  
“I can’t wait to help you pick out Gwel an Mor,” Harry said.  
Ginny discerned a grumpy look on her mother’s face. She knew she would hear all about it later, and as they did the after-breakfast dishes, Molly grumbled about “air castles” and “putting ideas in Harry’s head.”  
“Mum, don’t you think you’re being unfair?” Ginny said.  
Molly blinked in surprise, and then put her hands on her hips and raised her voice a bit as she said, “No, I most certainly do not!”  
“What’s wrong with Harry moving in with Sirius and Leta? Sirius can be Harry’s godfather, now, he’s pardoned,” Ginny said.  
“Sirius barely knows Harry! They both have an idealized notion of each other, and what sort of family they’ll be, but I simply don’t think Sirius knows the first thing about what a child needs,” Molly said. “and as for the LeStrange girl…”  
“Leta’s not a girl, Mum, she’s older than you,” Ginny pointed out.  
“Precisely! Who knows how she ended up behind the Veil, and who she really is? All this talk of finding a mansion by the sea in Cornwall and surfing….you wouldn’t understand, Ginny, but children need structure, not pie in the sky permanent holidays and nonsense!” Molly said.  
“Mum, you have to let Harry go,” Ginny said. “It was different when he didn’t have a family of his own, but now he does.”  
“Those people?! A family?!” Molly said.  
“Shh,” Ginny warned, but it was too late: Leta was standing at the eaves of the kitchen door. She was wearing a smart blouse with slightly puffy sleeves and French cuffs, with a tie at the throat, made of a gauzy chiffon, and a long skirt.  
Her face flinched minutely with hurt, and then settled into smooth, cool, aloof beauty. Molly, on the other hand, was blushing furiously red. Ginny hated that she blushed just as red as her mother when she was embarrassed. She hated what her mother had said. She didn’t want to be anything like her, in that moment, she wished she could smell like sandalwood and cinnamon, and float a bit when she walked, and have mysterious eyes like dark pools, like Leta.  
“I merely wanted to say, thank you for another excellent meal, Molly,” Leta said, and then drifted away. Ginny glared at her mother.  
“You’re always so embarrassing!” Ginny said, and stormed away from the kitchen.  
“Leta, wait! I’m so sorry about Mum,” Ginny said, catching up to Leta in the now empty dining room.  
“Ginevra, don’t take responsibility for other people’s shortcomings, failings, or faux pas: its terribly time consuming, and may give people the false impression that you haven’t anything better to do,” Leta said.  
Her tone was so ambiguous, Ginny couldn’t tell if this was meant as a swipe at her, or simply a statement of fact.  
“Mum doesn’t like Sirius much,” Ginny said, deciding to persevere.  
“I gathered,” Leta said. “Is it to do with Harry?”  
“She doesn’t think he’s a proper godfather to Harry,” Ginny said.  
“What do you think?” Leta asked.  
Ginny wasn’t prepared for that. She got told what to do, a lot, but she wasn’t often asked what her preferences and ideas were.  
“I like Sirius a lot,” Ginny said. “he was really kind the night my Dad was attacked by Voldemort’s snake. I was really scared. More scared than I wanted to let on, even to myself. But, he sat up with us, all night, and made us breakfast in the morning. He’s a good person. Mum just thinks our family would do a better job, if Harry lived with us.”  
“She’s a good woman-orphans don’t always arouse people’s better nature. Some despise the vulnerable as a burden,” Leta said. “Molly doesn’t shrink from those who need her, and I admire that.”  
“She’s embarrassing! She butts in even when no one wants to hear what she has to say!” Ginny said.  
“Yes, and imagine how that must feel. To be overlooked, to have to butt in everytime you want to be heard, knowing you perhaps don’t have the respect to be listened to,” Leta said.  
Ginny knew that feeling well. At school, she had never clicked with the Gryffindors in her year. She had been painfully shy and homesick, then consumed with Tom Riddle’s diary, and then known as the girl who had set Slytherin’s monster loose on the school. Her friends were mostly in other houses, or Gryffindors in Ron’s year. As for her brothers, none of them had quite known what to do with a little sister, and she spent her childhood being impatiently shooed away.  
“I guess I never thought that Mum must feel that way. She’s so bossy and opinionated!” Ginny said.  
“Sometimes women have to get loud and get mean to be heard-the world entraps us with silence, and we have to fight hard to break free,” Leta said. “The double-edged sword is that it can leave a bad impression on others, who don’t understand our motivations.”  
Ginny thought of Cordelia Black, how she had poured her heart into her diary, and taken refuge in rock and roll to be free. She had never realized that bossing others around was how her mother expressed herself out of frustration.  
“Yeah, I get it, but what she said about you and Sirius wasn’t fair,” Ginny said.  
“I’m used to it,” Leta said. She hesitated, then looked into Ginny’s eyes and said, “I didn’t have an easy time of it, in school. I did something very bad, when I was a girl…and everyone knew about it. There were lots of rumors, even though no one knew the exact details…and I was shunned. I only had one good friend. He was considered rather eccentric, himself, but he was a gentle, gentle boy. So sweet, and good.”  
Ginny felt as if she had been pierced by a shaft of light that had illuminated the darkest corners of her heart. That sounded just like her! She’d still been the ‘Chamber of Secrets Girl’ even to herself until Neville invited her to the Yule Ball. She considered him her first real friend at Hogwarts, even though by that time she had been there for three years.  
“I…I did something bad, too. And I don’t think anyone will ever really forget it. I mean, the only people who talk to me are boys, really, but they just…” Ginny trailed off, and Leta interjected.  
“Want one thing?” she said sagely.  
Ginny sighed in relief that she understood. Except for Neville, the boys who suddenly decided that she wasn’t a weirdo or a dark wizard after all only seemed interested in her new breasts and curves, and willing to tolerate the rest of her to enjoy her body-kissing it, fondling it, rutting against it, or merely gazing below her chin in wonder.  
“Beauty fades. We all want to be loved for our true selves,” Leta said.  
“Sirius really loves you!” Ginny burst out.  
“I really love him, too,” Leta said. “Ginevra, don’t worry about what Molly said. I know she means well, when it comes to Harry. And if I weren’t me, I suppose I shouldn’t trust me, either.”  
“I trust you, Leta! People should have second chances! No one ever lets anything go!” Ginny said.  
“Ah, a passionate and idealistic Gryffindor,” Leta smiled. “Things are not so simple, in life, but I appreciate your vote of confidence.”  
Leta affectionately tucked Ginny’s fiery hair behind her ears, while holding her gaze with her starry, dark brown eyes. Ginny felt a frisson of connection with this gorgeous, wise, mysterious woman that she had never felt with Hermione or any other girl at her school. Leta was the friends she had yearned for…and gotten Tom, instead. If only they could have been girls at Hogwarts together. 

Sirius was itching to leave Number 12 and its memories behind. Remus found an Atlas, and he, Sirius, and Harry were talking eagerly about Cornwall in the library. When Sirius spied Leta, he left his armchair and went over to her.  
“What’s that look in your eye? Should I move a mountain, pluck down a moon? You know I won’t tolerate you being unhappy for even a moment,” Sirius said.  
“Cease your hyperbole, dear boy! Its nothing,” Leta said.  
Harry looked over in concern. He was a sweet, caring boy, but an affectionate hand on his shoulder from Remus brought his attention back to the book they were currently studying, a Defensive magic text for Harry’s school group, the D.A.  
Sirius caressed Leta’s cheek lovingly, and gazed into her eyes, asking softly, “Molly Weasley was out of line, whatever else she said, and at breakfast.”  
“Her little daughter Ginevra offered the most charmingly unrehearsed apology. I like her immensely…but, I do wonder if maybe Madam Weasley spoke from…intuition, or instinct. You’ve only just gotten the chance to build a life with your son, and I don’t want to ruin things. I am an albatross, Sirius.”  
Sirius took her hand, and gently urged her out of the library. They walked to their sanctuary, the master bedroom they shared, and Leta sat on the bed.  
“We shared everything in the Veil, didn’t we?” he said, sitting on the floor, and putting his head in her lap, like a relaxed an affectionate dog.  
Leta smiled bemusedly at the gesture, and stroked his wavy brown hair with its flecks of gray from all his suffering.  
“Yes,” she said.  
“There is nothing I don’t know about you, Leta. And I love you. I want you to be apart of our lives, of our family. You me, Harry, and Moony,” Sirius said, gracing each name with love.  
“Remus has told me about Harry’s mother, Lily. I’m not like her. I fear I don’t have it in me to be the angel of a home,” Leta said.  
“Lily was no angel. She was a good person, and so are you,” Sirius said.  
“I haven’t the best luck with family,” Leta said.  
Sirius sat up, looked into Leta’s eyes, took both her hands, and reached up to grace her lips with a soft, undemanding kiss.  
“Our luck is changing, my love. Trust me?” Sirius said.  
She smiled. Leta had spent so much of her life despised, isolated, rejected, because of her family’s reputation for dark magic, the rumors about her brother’s death, and the color of her skin. She had learned to focus her heart and her eyes on what she loved and the people who loved her, and to let the ardor of love burn away the voices and scornful eyes of those who shunned, doubted, and looked down on her. She thought of Harry’s quiet openness, ready to love anyone of merit who came into his life, Ginevra Weasley’s clumsy but heartfelt empathy, Remus Lupin’s quiet acceptance of her into their fold, and Sirius…the tender love, deep respect, and smoldering desire, all welded into a gaze redolent of emotion in Sirius’s eyes.  
“Burning,” she said.  
He quirked his eyebrow quizzically, asking what she meant.  
“That’ s what your name means…in ancient Greek, burning. The brightest star,” she whispered. She caressed his face, and he drank her touch, closing his eyes to savor it. She heard a small moan in his throat.  
“Come to me, dear boy, my bright star,” she whispered, and he kissed her, more ardently than she had expected, hard, deep, bringing their tongues together to writhe in tandem. Leta urged Sirius to join her on the bed, and she welcomed the dear weight of his body against her’s. She lost herself in feeling loved, burying the embers of guilt she felt…would he still want her to be apart of the family he was building if he knew she had asked Nymphadora to find Theseus? Would he think she was faithless?  
‘Accept this moment. Live it fully. If there will be trouble another day, we must wait until that day to fix it,’ she told herself, not knowing whether she was right or wrong, caring only for Sirius’s touch.


	7. Chapter 7

“Got what you asked for, I just hope that it goes some way towards closure,” Tonks said, as she presented Leta with Theseus’s Ministry file.  
The first thing she noticed was that there was a date of birth, as well as a date of death listed. A date in the 1980s. She was momentarily breathless. If she had escaped the Veil ten years before, twenty years before, she could have met him once more…The photograph staring back at her was not the handsome, earnest, slightly intense but tender young man who had held her hand, kissed her, looked deeply into her eyes, and gently slipped an engagement ring on her finger, but a hawkish older man who looked stern and capable, but unimpeachably noble. She smiled at the man he had become, and read his achievements as an Auror. He had lived a good life. Theseus had always been unmistakably, unalterably good.  
But, he was gone.   
“His brother is still alive. Newt Scamander? Your friend,” Tonks said. “Maybe it would be good, for you two to meet up, and talk about Theseus, talk about old times.”  
Leta blinked away tears. “I wanted to belong to them, so badly. A good, solid, normal, happy family,” she said. “I was just a silly girl, who wanted to be at home somewhere.”  
“It’s not silly, to want someone to love. Or to let yourself love someone. We’re human, we can’t help it. And what you’re feeling now is natural, too,” Tonks said. “Its all right.”  
“Thank you, Nymphadora. I do feel a cry coming on,” Leta said.  
“So do I, now you used that poncy, posh name my Mum picked out for me. You know how the Blacks are!” Tonks said.  
Leta laughed, even though their were hot, fresh tears for Theseus prickling her eyes. Tonks smiled warmly, and reached for Leta’s hand, giving it a squeeze.   
“Tell me again, how you got my Great-Auntie Walburga’s portrait down?” Tonks said, knowing that this subject would both distract and invigorate Leta.   
Leta knew that her thoughts would come back to Theseus, and that she would want to be alone with his memory later, but she was so grateful that Tonks was trying to cheer her up, she let her. She put Theseus’s file on a cherrywood coffee table, the two women sat down in comfy armchairs by the fire, and Leta told Tonks about confronting Walburga. Conversation and warmth flowed freely between them.

“I found something,” Ginny said. “Come to the attic with me?”  
She stood in the eaves of Harry’s room, which had once belonged to Regulus Black, Sirius’s brother. The cover and canopy curtains of the bed were, to Harry’s regret, Slytherin green velvet. He peeled himself off the bed. In a few days, Sirius would go to Hogwarts to sign his pardon, the Weasleys would return to Devonshire, and he, Leta, and Sirius would look at houses in Cornwall and choose one-their family home, the first home Harry had chosen with a family of his own. As the days leading up to a significant event always are, everyone’s last couple of days at Grimmauld Place felt tedious and unnecessary, days they wished they could skip and sooner reach the homes waiting for them.  
Harry followed Ginny’s waving red hair to the attic. It was crowded, dark, and dusty. She took a heavy fabric covering off of whatever it was she intended to show him, and it was revealed to be a portrait of Cordelia. She was the same as in the photograph, but even more intensely beautiful, glancing piercingly over her bare shoulder in an off-the-shoulder gown, her gray eyes beseeching and penetrating the viewer of the portrait. There were pearls woven in her dark hair.  
Harry opened his mouth to speak, and closed it. He reached out as if to touch, but didn’t, as if she would burn him. Cordelia, whose words he had absorbed, whose secrets he was cradling in his heart. He so wanted to give her his secrets, in return. The one girl he felt he could talk to, be himself with, be at ease with, and this was all that was left of her.   
Harry felt feverish, and slightly faint. He remembered that Ginny was there, and looked over at her. The scant sunlight of the attic window was falling on her hair, and it flared to brightness.  
“I thought you would like it. You’ve been reading her diary,” Ginny said.  
“I wish I could talk to her,” Harry said.  
“I don’t think this portrait talks,” Ginny said.  
“Why? Don’t all portraits of wizards talk?” Harry said.  
“If they were painted by a wizard. I don’t think this one was. A lot of Squibs are portrait painters. Its one of the few trades that they can take up, you know, and still be apart of our world,” Ginny explained.  
“Can you see Mrs. Black letting a Squib in this house?” Harry asked.  
“Well, she’s got a house elf. I can’t see her distinguishing between them, much. And, maybe she wanted a Squib painter…I think she probably preferred Cordelia silent,” Ginny said.  
Harry shuddered inwardly at the thought.  
“You don’t think…that she had something to do with Cordelia and her baby dying?” Harry asked.  
“I don’t think even Mrs. Black was that foul. I think bad things happen…” Ginny said. “Harry, do you think its healthy for you to get stuck on such a sad subject? I mean, all families have their tragedies, but it can’t be good to poke at this one, and read that diary all the time. And before you say that I’m one to talk, when it comes to that-”  
“I wouldn’t say that,” Harry said.   
Ginny stopped, blinked, and visibly settled down. “No. You never have,” she said. “You never did.”  
“It wasn’t your fault, Ginny,” Harry said. “And, I guess I read Cordelia’s diary because…I like her. That must seem strange.”  
“No, not really. People put a lot of themselves into diaries,” Ginny said. “But, she’s not here, anymore.”  
“Yeah, I gathered that,” Harry said sharply.   
“I mean, that…its easier to make friends with someone or something that’s not altogether here, isn’t it? Because we can be as present as we want to be, we think we don’t have to deal with the unpleasant bits of being with other people. The things they ask of us, and misunderstandings, and just how hard it is to know what to say…” Ginny said.  
“No,” Harry said flatly. “that’s not what it is, here. The things she wrote about…Cordelia and I, I can’t explain it, but we’re the same.”  
“Because she was lonely?” Ginny asked. “Harry, you’re not alone. You have people you can talk to, besides that diary.”  
“Yeah, like who?” He muttered.  
“Me!” Ginny said. “I’m right here, and I’m alive. Why not me?”  
He looked at her as he never had before, and seemed to be deliberating, making some sort of decision. His green eyes had the intense smolder of a precious gem, trained on her as they were, giving off a faint warmth, like direct moonlight.  
“Thanks, Ginny. Everything’s all right. Why don’t you go downstairs, hang out with Hermione?” he said.  
Ginny snorted. “Yeah, maybe we should go cook something, or do each other’s hair?”  
“That’s not what I mean,” Harry said desperately.  
“You keep doing this. You shut down, and you shut people out, and act like you’re alone,” Ginny said.   
“You wouldn’t understand!” Harry said.  
“I just told you I can understand,” Ginny said.  
“No! You have a family! You have a mum, and a dad, you have six brothers, who love you and would do anything for you, and a house where all your family lives! You don’t have to be invited over to anyone else’s house for the holidays. You have a family!” Harry said.  
“Cordelia isn’t your family! She never knew you, Harry! She lived, and died, and never knew who you were! If you feel close to her, its because you feel like her diary says all the things you don’t know how to say, yet. But, that doesn’t mean you have to shut us out!” Ginny roared.  
“Did Hermione put you up to this?” Harry asked.  
“I don’t just take orders from my Mum, Hermione and Ron all day. You don’t see me, at all,” Ginny said angrily, and stormed down the attic stairs, leaving Harry in the attic alone.   
She didn’t know what she thought would happen when she showed Harry the portrait of Cordelia Black. She thought he would finally open up to her, and she could be the guardian of his secrets, the protector of his pain. 

Harry looked from Ginny’s waving red hair, quickly disappearing as she climbed down the attic steps, and Cordelia’s portrait. Harry felt like he had woken up from a dream upon a splash of cold water. Ginny was right: Cordelia’s account of her mother’s abuse had hit home for him, and he felt that he was confiding in someone about the Dursleys. He’d let that feeling of kinship go too far, and gone overboard, ignoring the fact that he did have a family, now. He now had Sirius, Remus, and Leta, and soon they would be moving to Cornwall. They would have a home, and that is where Harry would go for Christmas and Easter. And his friends…he had shut out Ginny, Ron, and Hermione. Why were all of these feelings hitting him, now? The battle at the Department of Mysteries had made him feel vulnerable, and that had brought up feelings from his childhood about the Dursleys.  
With one last glance at Cordelia, Harry left the attic.   
When he reached the corridors of Grimmauld Place’s second floor, he looked around for Ginny. He didn’t know what he wanted to say to her, but he knew that he wanted to explain that his heart had changed in those seconds in the dark without her.


End file.
